Growing up, I couldn’t understand why I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. There it was in black and white on my birth certificate, yet it didn’t make any sense. My parents had never lived in Kentucky, we weren’t American and had no family connections to the place whatsoever.
When I asked my mother, she told me she chose Kentucky because it was where her favourite film, Gone With The Wind, was set (it wasn’t) and she always wanted her child to be born in such a romantic location. It’s also why she called me Olivia after one of the film’s stars, Olivia de Havilland.
At the time, I thought this was a beautiful story, like a fairy tale.
Many years later, however, I discovered my mother’s fairy-tale fantasy concealed a devastating truth; I was born in Kentucky because an American surrogate gave birth to me there.
Mere seconds after I was born, I had been rapidly removed from the woman who had become pregnant with me — using her own eggs — and had carried me for nine months. Rather than being placed in my biological mother’s arms to be nurtured and adored, I was handed over to a man and woman who had, put simply, paid an awful lot of money for me.
I was born in Kentucky because an American surrogate gave birth to me there. I had been rapidly removed from the woman who had become pregnant with me — using her own eggs — and had carried me for nine months
My birth 31 years ago may have concluded this particular financial transaction, but it was just the beginning of a trauma that I struggle to cope with to this day.
It seems barely a week goes by without a celebrity declaring the birth of a child born via surrogacy, be it Paris Hilton or Khloe Kardashian.
In the UK, the Law Commission has put forward a recommendation that would see parents who use surrogates get legal status from birth.
Currently the surrogate mother is the legal parent until the intended parents gain a parental order, which can take months. Yet while my heart truly goes out to any woman who longs to have a child, as someone who was the product of a surrogacy birth, I can never cheer these announcements.
My experiences have led me to conclude that surrogacy is nothing short of cruel — an immoral act that can cause lifelong damage.
Becoming a parent myself — entirely naturally, in my mid-20s — has only crystallised my view. The sacred bond between mother and baby is, I feel, something that should never be tampered with.
When writing about the trauma adopted children are said to suffer after being taken from their birth mothers, some psychologists refer to this emotional and physical severance as ‘the primal wound’.
I believe it’s the same for children born via surrogacy: a profoundly painful experience that disrupts the innate connections between birthing mother and child.
Little wonder, perhaps, that I have such unhappy memories of my childhood. Even as a young child, I had a sense that something was ‘off’ in my family. My French parents were very wealthy, and we split our time between Palm Beach in Florida and the South of France, living in fabulous homes, with a full complement of nannies and staff.
My education was the best money could buy; we went on the sort of holidays most people could only dream of.
Materially, I wanted for nothing. But emotionally it was a different story.
Neither of my parents were affectionate ‘huggy’ types and a succession of nannies, an army of different women, looked after me much of the time.
Why, you might wonder, when my parents went to such lengths to have me, did I not feel showered with love?
I simply don’t know. Mum was 49 when I was born; it could be her age made it harder for her — or the lack of that precious biological connection between us. Whatever the cause, there was no bond from day one.
I was so needy as a young child, I would scream the place down if my parents left the house. It got so bad they had to take me and a nanny with them if they went out to have dinner with friends.
Things were no better at school, where I was so clingy I suffocated friends until they grew sick of me and dumped me.
The older I got, the more I realised how unusual — and unlikely — it was for someone of my mother’s age to have a baby. And I couldn’t get Louisville, Kentucky, out of my head. When I was 16, I did some online research and saw Gone With The Wind wasn’t set in Kentucky — it was set in Georgia.
Olivia with her children, from left, Eleanor, six, two-year-old August and Theodore, four
But what did keep showing up in my online searches was that Louisville was a big centre for surrogacy. Instantly, something clicked.
When further research revealed surrogacy was illegal in France — still the case today — I put two and two together.
The realisation that I had been lied to all my life sent me spiralling out of control as I tried to blot out my feelings.
My dark worries were kept to myself; I never spoke to my parents about this. That would have necessitated a closeness that just didn’t exist.
Lonely and confused, I started on a journey of self-destruction.
I drank heavily, smoked marijuana and partied non-stop, anything to stop the thoughts that plagued me. Was my mother really my mother at all? Who was I?
My parents no doubt thought I was a troubled teen who would just sort herself out eventually.
But my depression deepened to such an extent that, after leaving home, I made several suicide attempts, which my parents knew nothing about.
My behaviour became more reckless. Now aged 20 and living in France full-time, one night, after drinking to the point of annihilation, I was raped. Telling the police wasn’t an option because I felt so ashamed and blamed myself.
Finally, I realised I needed to escape from this cycle of trauma. I sought out a therapist, and weaned myself off drink and drugs.
Shortly afterwards I met Matthias, the man who became my husband. He was my saviour and psychologist all in one. Without him, I don’t think I would be here today.
We married when I was 24 and I soon became pregnant with my daughter Eleanor, now six. Having been raised by an older mother, I was certain I wanted to be a young mum.
While I had no proof I had been born via a surrogate when I fell pregnant, I felt it with every fibre of my being. I told everyone as much, including my husband and his loving family. My pregnancy progressed well. As my unborn daughter began to kick, it raised all sorts of feelings.
Even before I’d held her in my arms, I knew you could offer me millions and I’d never give her up.
There was an almost transcendent joy at the thought of this little one being so close to me in my womb. That feeling continued in my subsequent pregnancies: my sons Theodore and August are four and two respectively.
Perhaps understandably, I was highly focused on my own children’s births being just right. I wanted home births for all (although I ended up having a hospital delivery with my daughter) and for them to be instantly placed on me for skin-to-skin bonding, just as Mother Nature intended.
It was reported in 2017 that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West paid their surrogate $45,000 when she welcomed their daughter, Chicago. They also used a surrogate for their son, Psalm
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin are seen with their kids. The star couple have used surrogacy
It was my mother-in-law who helped me definitively find out the truth of my parentage. For my 30th birthday in 2022 she bought me a kit for one of those DNA ancestry sites.
Before taking it, I decided to tackle my father. One day, while driving to our holiday home in the mountains, I said: ‘Dad, I know I was born via a surrogate. I know Mum didn’t give birth to me and you need to tell me because I deserve the truth.’
He replied: ‘I need to talk to your mother before I can tell you anything.’
It was enough for me; with this sentence, he had effectively confirmed my fears. I waited for him or Mum to come back to me with the full story, but they never did, and I didn’t see the point in asking again.
I sent my DNA sample off and was very quickly matched with a first cousin living in America.
I messaged her and said I believed I had been born via surrogacy. Although it was an awkward thing to ask, did she know if anyone in her family had acted as a surrogate?
She replied straight away: ‘I know someone.’ I felt my life change instantly: nerves, excitement and, yes, pain, overwhelmed me.
She put me in touch with my half-brother, who in turn put me in touch with my three half-sisters.
They were so loving and willing to answer my endless questions and, slowly, I learned the whole story.
Their mother was the surrogate who had given birth to me and was also my biological mother.
Most surrogates are what is called ‘gestational carriers’ — they carry the baby and deliver it but are not biologically related. Incubators, in other words.
But my birth mother had used her own eggs and was artificially inseminated with my father’s sperm.
Aged 38 when she had me, she already had five children with her husband. Her youngest child died in a tragic accident when he was two.
Shortly afterwards, she contacted the surrogacy agency. She was so obviously grieving I believe she should never have been accepted as a suitable candidate — initially, she didn’t even tell her husband about her plans.
But, in my view, as surrogacy involves vast sums of money, the wellbeing of birthing mothers is all too easily overlooked.
After a while, my American siblings told me my biological mother wanted to make contact.
We began to exchange messages. At first, I felt such anger. I wanted to ask her: ‘Why did you keep five of your children and sell me? Why wasn’t I good enough to keep?’
Instead, though, I asked her favourite colour. Purple. Same as me. She sent me pictures of herself pregnant with me and I felt suddenly connected. She looked just like me: the eyes, the hair, the jawline. That was my mother all right.
It was the first time I’d looked like a relative.
As surrogacy involves vast sums of money, the wellbeing of birthing mothers is all too easily overlooked
She told me that every year on my birthday she thought about me and said a prayer. I want to believe her, but am not sure I do. Those things are easy to say to a person desperate to hear them.
More than anything, I wanted to know about my birth.
I learned that my birthday was chosen for me — the pregnancy had been induced so I arrived on December 10, a date that fitted in with my parents’ travel plans. Even my arrival was contractual and unnatural.
My birth mother was asked if she wanted to hold me and says she told the midwife: ‘No, I can’t. Because if I do I know I’ll never let her go.’
Instead, I was taken away by the nurse and she never saw me again.
After a few weeks, our messages petered out. I don’t think we’ll be in touch again.
Sadly, I believe she suffers with mental health issues and has disconnected relationships with all of her children.
That said, I have an ongoing relationship with my cousin, her mother (my aunt) and my half-siblings. They have become the family I always wanted and I hope one day we can all get together in the flesh.
At last, after decades of suspicion, I had absolute proof of what had happened to me.
Yet I didn’t confront my parents. I felt as if I would be spitting in their faces somehow.
They paid a lot of money to have me — commercial surrogacy can run into six-figure sums — they had raised me and I still felt a loyalty towards them. I had hoped that knowing all would bring me closure. Instead, hearing the truth plunged me into a depression and I was forced again to seek psychological help.
The more I reeled from my discovery, the more I realised I had to use my experiences to help other people.
Last year, I posted a video on TikTok which led to me becoming involved with the campaign that calls for the universal abolition of surrogacy. I ended up telling my story at an international conference on surrogacy held at the parliament of the Czech Republic. My speech went viral.
I’ve been moved to tears by the messages I have had from women who tell me how deeply they regret their decisions to be surrogates and how they pine for the babies they gave up.
We can only protect women like them — and the babies they have — if we ban all forms of surrogacy, including so-called altruistic surrogacy, where the surrogate is not paid a fee for carrying a child, as is the case in Britain.
After much thought, I have concluded that altruistic surrogacy is a myth.
Even in countries such as the UK where commercial arrangements are banned, large sums are paid in the form of expenses.
The reality is a woman’s body is still being rented and a baby is still going to be separated from its birth mother. In my view, it makes no difference if the surrogate is not the biological mother.
It’s her womb that has nurtured the child. It’s her voice the baby has heard day in, day out, as it grows within her. It’s her scent that will soothe the child. It is her they feel bonded to.
And while I feel so deeply for those who cannot have children, the sad reality is we can’t all have what we want in life.
From all my research, I cannot see there is a ‘good’ version of surrogacy. In countries where it is or has been legal, it has often gone wrong.
For example, Thailand banned surrogacy for international intended parents completely in 2015 after a high-profile case where an Australian couple hired a surrogate who gave birth to twins, a healthy girl and a boy with Down’s Syndrome.
The couple took the girl home and left the impoverished mother to care for the boy.
This week I heard about one British agency that offers financial incentives to potential surrogates: Apple watches, theme park tickets, gourmet meal kits, even sex toys.
I knew the minute I started to speak out publicly I would become estranged from my parents.
Sadly, that’s exactly what has happened. They see their grandchildren but we don’t speak any more. In a way, it’s a continuation of the awkwardness and distance that has always been there. That said, I love them and don’t bear a grudge.
But I’m unable to stay silent while I still struggle with the traumatic legacy of surrogacy.
As told to Claudia Connell
